Liberals Are Leading America Into Fascism

Start Thinking Right ^ | April 3, 2009 | Michael Eden

[Michael Eden]

More and more, we are seeing our country moved not just toward European socialism, but toward fascism (which, of course, is also European). As this longtime trend now dramatically picks up speed, we should first realize a couple of critical points: First of all, socialism, communism and fascism are kissing cousins, intimately related to one another. "U.S.S.R." was an acronym for "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." "N.A.Z.I." was an acronym for "National Socialist German Workers' Party."

Second, both communism and fascism are products of the left. Ask yourself this: if we had a "National Socialist American Workers' Party," does it sound to you like something that would be more in line with conservatives and Republicans or with liberals and Democrats?

I personally began to understand the link between modern American liberalism and fascism by way of my own study of postmodernism. This connection began with my readings of Gene Edward Veith's books, Postmodern Times and Modern Fascism. As a result of my readings I wrote an article, "How Postmodernism Leads to Fascism" - consisting of three parts (part 2; part 3) - exploring the relationship of the ideas underlying postmodern thought and fascistic thought. I subsequently came to discover that others had had similar understandings (e.g. see George Crowder's review of Richard Wolin's book, The Seduction of Unreason: the Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism entitled, "Are post modernists fascist?"

I must here hasten to add that neither Gene Edward Veith nor the aforementioned writers directly attempted in their projects to connect fascism with liberalism or with the Democratic Party. But in my readings I could not help but repeatedly hear striking similarities between the positions I was seeing inherent in postmodernism and fascism with the ideas coming out of the mouths of prominent Democrats.

My point is that when you study the presuppositions, the worldview, underlying postmodernism, and do the same thing with fascism, you begin to see far too many similarities to simply dismiss. It is fair to say that "postmodernism" is a philosophical perspective, and that "fascism" is the resulting political expression of postmodern thought. And the Democratic Party, in buying into postmodern thought, are increasingly buying into fascism.

If I had truly had an original idea in seeing a connection between modern American liberalism and fascism, Jonah Goldberg beat me to its examination in his thought-provoking work, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini tot he Politics of Meaning. While my studies had focused primarily upon philosophy and underlying worldviews, Goldberg's book is a solid study of brute history.

Goldberg doesn't merely assign pejorative labels to people and groups he doesn't like. Rather, he painstakingly explores - through original sources and through the works of influential historians - the thoughts and policies of fascists such as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and then demonstrates the clear connection of their thoughts and policies with the thoughts and policies of American progressives and liberals such as Woodrow Wilson, FDR, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and others. Even George W. Bush - with his "compassionate conservatism" and his "No child left behind," is discovered to be connected with certain fascist tendencies (see page 23).

Nor does Goldberg set out to use his terms such as "fascist" and "totalitarian" as a harsh, negative, politically-charged charged accusation. For instance, of "totalitarianism" he says:

"But what do we mean when we say something is "totalitarian"? The word itself has certainly taken on an understandably sinister connotation in the last half century. Thanks to work by Hannah Arendt, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others, it's become a catchall for brutal, soul-killing, Orwellian regimes. But that's not how the word was originally used or intended. Mussolini himself coined the term to describe a society where everybody belonged, where everyone was taken care of, where everything was inside the state and nothing was outside; where truly no child was left behind" (p. 14).

And he then leaves it up to the reader to decide whether "totalitarianism" - now properly understood in its historical context - is actually more compatible with the philosophy of conservatism or liberalism. And in the same way Goldberg does not set out to attack liberals by comparing them to Hitler, but rather to contrast the fascism of Hitler from the fascism of American liberals:

"This American fascism seems - and is - very different from its European variants because it was moderated by many special factors - geographical size, ethnic diversity, Jeffersonian individualism, a strong classical liberal tradition, and so on. As a result, American fascism is milder, more friendly, more "maternal" than its foreign counterparts - "smiley-face fascism." Nice fascism. The best term to describe it is "liberal fascism." And this liberal fascism was, and remains, fundamentally left wing" (p. 8).

But he demonstrates in the body of his book that the shoe - in this case the label "fascism" - clearly fits the modern American left - and NOT the right.

One of the reasons leftists have been able to charge the right with being "fascists" is the tendency of conservatives to place a high value on a powerful military - making them "militaristic" and thus fascistic in the minds of leftists. But this charge is simply unfair for two reasons: 1) because most conservatives want a powerful military in order to maintain a deterrent against attack from totalitarian regimes, not to defeat and despoil peaceful countries; and 2) because "militarism" is a mindset that has far larger overtones than merely creating military armies.

Of this second point, Goldberg writes:

"Consider militarism, which will come up again and again in the course of this book. Militarism was indisputably central to fascism (and communism) in countless countries. But it has a much more nuanced relationship with fascism than one might suppose... But for far more people, militarism was a pragmatic expedient: the highest, best means for organizing society in productive ways. Inspired by ideas like those in William James' famous essay "The Moral Equivalent of War," militarism seemed to provide a workable and sensible model for achieving desirable ends. Mussolini, who openly admired and invoked James, used this logic for his famous "Battle of the Grains" and other sweeping social initiatives. Such ideas had an immense following in the United States, with many leading progressives championing the use of "industrial armies" to create the ideal workers' democracy. Later, Franklin Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps - as militaristic a social program as one can imagine - borrowed from these ideas, as did JFK's Peace Corps.

This trope has hardly been purged from contemporary liberalism. Every day we hear about the "war on cancer," the "war on drugs," the "War on poverty," and exhortations to make this or that social challenge the "moral equivalent of war." From health care to gun control to global warming, liberals insist that we need to "get beyond politics" and "put ideological differences behind us" in order to "do the people's business." The experts and scientists know what to do, we are told; therefore the time for debate is over. This, albeit in a nicer and more benign form, is the logic of fascism - and it was on ample display in the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and yes, even John F. Kennedy" (pp. 5-6).

It's one thing to believe that we need a strong national defense; and quite another to seek to militarize an entire society toward goals chosen by autocrats. The former is simply prudent in a dangerous world; the second is fascist.

Having stated the fact that "fascism" is a species within the umbrella category of "socialism," there are yet distinguishing features that would make a particular "socialist" system "fascist." Sheldon Richman (of the Foundation for Economic Education) provides the distinction in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics in his entry on "Fascism":

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society's economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the "national interest"--that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

Appearing on the Glenn Beck television program on April 1, 2009, Richman said:

"Under socialism there was no facade of free markets or capitalism, whatever you want to call it. Everything was just nationalized, and the economy was just a government operation. Under fascism - under Mussolini in Italy and then under Hitler in the 30s with the Nazis - they left intact what looked like private businesses; the government just dictated all the terms. But in both cases - in fascism and socalism - the market was effectively abolished. There was no marketplace. There was no bidding, there was no haggling, there was no market.

And that should give us an important disctinction of what is going on today in the United States. The market has not been abolished in the United States. It is very heavily burdened by government, but that is not the same as abolishing it."

Sheldon Richman acknowledges that we aren't fascist quite yet, but he also says:

"We've been on that road [moving away from our republic and toward a system of fascism] for a very long time. We've been on that road for ages, even into the 19th century. We sometimes take two steps forward, and then one back, sometimes we take one step forward, and two steps back. The GM and the AIG situations are more like fascism than socialism."

Jonah Goldberg likewise argues that the left has - to various degrees - embraced fascism since at least the early 20th century. And - in the light of the last few months - it is vital that we note that we have lurched not one or two steps toward fascism, but dozens of steps in what now frankly appears to a headlong rush.

I point out in a recent article that the last president who fired the CEO of a private company was Vladimir Putin. And the Obama administration has not only fired GM CEO Rick Wagoner, but it will not rule out firing other CEOs of private companies, as well. The Obama administration has already spent more and added more debt than every president from George Washington to George Bush - combined. We are looking at unsustainable levels of federal spending under Obama, which the Congressional Budget Office says will result in "an ever-expanding national debt that would exceed 82% of the overall economy by 2019."

We are watching a frightening takeover of the economy by the federal government in an incredibly short period of time from an administration whose chief of staff and whose Secretary of State have already essentially said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste... it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before."

Obama has appointed a global warming czar, Carol Browner, who had been one of the leaders of a socialist group whose position on global governance includes the view that the United States should abdicate its international leadership to international organizations, and that the international community should be the ultimate arbiter of climate change policy.

Obama nominated Harold Koh as the State Department's legal adviser, a man who:

"once wrote that the U.S. was part of an 'axis of disobedience' with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Koh also has long held that the U.S. should accept international law when deliberating cases at home.... Koh also advocates a 'transnational legal process' and has criticized the U.S. for its failure to 'obey global norms.'"

And now we have Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner literally saying he is open to replacing the US dollar with a new global currency:

Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is "open" to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar, but which Geithner described as more modest and "evolutionary."

"I haven’t read the governor’s proposal. He’s a very thoughtful, very careful distinguished central banker. I generally find him sensible on every issue," Geithner said, saying that however his interpretation of the proposal was to increase the use of International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights -- shares in the body held by its members -- not creating a new currency in the literal sense.

"We’re actually quite open to that suggestion – you should see it as rather evolutionary rather building on the current architecture rather than moving us to global monetary union," he said.

"The only thing concrete I saw was expanding the use of the [special drawing rights]," Geithner said. "Anything he’s thinking about deserves some consideration."

While Geithner flip-flopped on his "open" positon less than 24 hours after expressing it, all three high level Obama officials reveal a shocking openness - if not an outright call - for a new internationalist order in which we unpeg ourselves from our Constitution and move into international law as the source of our authority.

Which is more quintessentially fascist than anything this nation has ever seen, as former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton explained on the April 1, 2009 Glenn Beck program:

"There are a lot of people, some of whom are now in the Obama administration, who believe that the United States should move into a process of 'international norming,' where we conform our domestic laws to the international consensus - whether it's on death penalty or climate change, or gun control, a whole range of issues - for almost every domestic issue, there's a kind of international counterpart. I think this is fundamentally dangerous because I think ultimately it takes decision-making away from the people and our constitutional system and puts it into the international arena."

We have little enough sway over our own elected officials. Imagine how little influence we would have over unelected global autocrats imposing their "global consciousness" upon us.

And again, this is a trend that is now dramatically increasing in velocity. Liberal Supreme Court Justices have been looking to international law as a source for legitimization of the rulings they have wanted to impose on the American people for years.

Fascism has been coming into our country for decades. It is flooding into our country right now. And it is - and has been - liberals urging it upon us.

More than 150 years ago Alexis de Tocqueville predicted that such a smiley-faced fascist state would mean the death of liberty in America:

“Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood; it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances; what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?”

Right now individual citizens as well as major banks and corporations such as AIG and General Moters are trading their freedom for security. But Benjamin Franklin addressed the tradeoff that we are seeing being made more and more often:

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

[driftless2]

Before we descend into total leftist-fascism, we will probably witness some sort of rebellion, possibly violent.
The character of the great majority of Americans remains more conservative than liberal. But the big problem is leftists are at present ruling this great country. Thirty years ago these types could only get gov jobs as advisors. And even then they weren’t given much power. All that has changed with the current fascist-leftist regime. Obama must be stopped. Legally, but stopped nevertheless.

[driftless2]

"ignorant of history"

Eden was perfectly correct when he called them kissing cousins. Because two sides calling themselves different names slaughtered each other in great numbers does not make them totally different. Solzhenitsyn didn't see much difference between communism and nazism.

[Michael Eden]

In response to your comment #99:

First of all, realize that the project of “Hitler: right or left” has been undertaken for DECADES by leftist scholars with the obvious conclusion. It was undertaken by the Communist Party itself (defining fascism as its polar opposite). Do you have any idea how many leftist academics have saddled conservatives with the comparison to fascism/Nazism?

Second, what exactly does “right wing socialism” look like? Can you point to OTHER “conservative socialists” to justify your view that the question as to whether Hitler was right or left wing is murky?

Third, the fact that the Nazi Party changed over time to accomodate Hitler becomes something of a red herring: as Hitler and the Party were rising to power, were he and they right or left wing? Rather than overcomplicate, let’s simplify: take a snapshot of the early 1930s when Hitler STILL had to appeal to a political base. Can you seriously argue to me that the Nazi Party platform (of which I previously enumerated several points) was “right wing”?

Fourth, take other fascist governments - such as Benito Mussolini’s Italy. Was IT “right wing”? Why did so many from the American political left express their affiliation with both Mussolini and (prior to the late 1930s) Adolf Hitler? And if those who are seeing the frightening parallels between Obama’s America and fascism, can we then argue - if “Nazism” and the “fascism” from which it sprang is “right wing” - that Barack Obama is actually a “far right winger” who cleverly disguised himself as a liberal?

Some other points: have you ever done a study of the worldview presuppositions underlying fascism? I have, and they most certainly do not come from the conservative, “right wing” sphere (If Hitler was a conservative, just what the hell was he trying to conserve?). How then can you have radical leftist presuppostions (virtually identical with communism - a later commenter correctly points out that Alexander Solschenizyn - in Gulag Archipelago - did not see any real difference between communism and Nazism ), and somehow end up with a right-wing government?

[Michael Eden]

Here’s why I think your decision to read Rise and Fall was intuitively correct:

It’s interesting that both Mussolini and Hitler so admired ancient Rome. Hitler called it the “crystallization point of a world empire.”

Both Hitler and Mussolini viewed Christianity in essentially Nietzschian terms, as something that dragged down Western Civilization and which needed to be abandoned. They looked to pre-Christianity to find the “greatness” they aspired to.

The American founding fathers would blanche at such a comparison between the American Constitution and the rule of the Roman Caesars; the fascist dictators glorified in it.

Whenever one approaches government as the solution to problems - which since the abandonment of monarchies has been the exclulsive domain of the political left - the tendency is invariably toward the pursuit of absolute power, such as the Caesars came to have.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

My point is very simple.

Once you really get to know Hitler you realize that he isn't a product of an ideology. He is a sociopath of demonic proportions. He had no plans for management except to enlarge himself and destroy anything that stood in his way.

That's why I said it is folly to try an place such a person at some point upon a political continuum when such person is basically apolitical.

In the Germany of his time, he was consider "extreme right" (by the definition of right v left of the time). In retrospect, he defies all such definition.

Certainly the contemporary left tries to say he is a product of right wing ideology. But that too is just a lie.

He transcends such political definition and trying to assign him to any is just a waster of time (which is why it is so intellectually frustrating and irresolvable).

[Michael Eden]

I’m not trying to “place” Hitler in terms of left or right; I agree with you that he would have been anything that would have given him power. He didn’t want “leftism,” he wanted power.

What I am arguing is that fascism itself - and Nazism as well - are thoroughly from the left. There simply is no such thing as “right wing socialism.”

And it was progressive/liberal Americans who were impressed with both communism and its socialist rival fascism. Both Golderg and Veith spend a fair bit of time cataloguing and quoting American leftists who acclaimed fascism. This adoration simply wasn’t coming from the American political right.

And, again, I pointed out that the Nazi platform - which I cited for you - is CLEARLY left wing in its orientation.

Fascism was a political ideology that clearly emerged from the political left.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

The Nazi party is probably best broken into two phases...pre-Hitler and post-Hitler. Clearly the party that was to become the Nazi Party was socialist in its intentions, but it was tiny (in fact Hitler the 55th member to join) in 1920. The platform written in 1920 reflected its socialist intentions.

However, Hitler became Chairman in 1921 and while he paid lip service to its origins and platform initially, he completely co-opted the party after becoming chairman and instituted the Führerprinzip (leadership principal) under which he would personally dictate all policies and strategies. That was the beginning of the post-Hitler party and from that time on the party grew rapidly and quickly became merely a relection of Hitler (neither right or left but with some features of each).

As to the Fascism movement of Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, I will only state that it is a separate subject and requires treatment as such.

[Michael Eden]

First of all, I have to correct you: Hitler was NOT the “55th member to join,” but the 555th.

Secondly, the fact remains that the Nazi Party platform was and continued to remain a truly leftist platform. The Nazi Party rose to power on that platform. I frankly don’t see how you can simply dismiss it like it somehow didn’t matter.

Hitler didn’t merely “play lip service” to the Nazi Party Platform; he used it to rise to power. He convinced the masses that he was going to bring the platform into reality. If he didn’t actually intend to do that stuff, it doesn’t matter in the slightest: the people who empowered him and made him fuhrer believed that he would. Hence Hitler rose to power on a leftist agenda. Just admit it.

Third, you think Hitler had this pact with the industrial-military complex that somehow qualified as “right wing.” Please do a little reading about communism, and see how totally “militaristic” communism was before continuing to advance this claim. The only difference was that the incredibly militaristic communists officially nationalized their industries, and Hitler took total control of the industrial base in a slightly different way (and I note that the Nazi Party platform even used the TERM “nationalize” in point 13: “We demand the nationalization of all associated industries” (with point 12 relating to “the total confiscation of all war profits”).

Let me again cite Sheldon Richman’s Concise Encyclopedia of Economics:

“Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.”

Both communism and fascism ended up with the government dictating to and controlling the industrial base.

To try to argue that Hitler was somehow “right wing” because he was militaristic is simply bizarre given that the communists were just as militaristic as Hitler was! Hven’t you ever seen those huge military parades with the goose-stepping Soviet troops marching through Red Square with all the tanks and missile launchers? And Hitler practiced socialism - which is COMPLETELY LEFT WING - in essentially confiscating the industrial base toward his agenda.

Hitler was a man of the left, and you’re going to have to explain precisely how he was a man of the right. If Hitler was a conservative, please explain precisely just what it was he was trying to “conserve.”

[SonOfDarkSkies]

First of all, I have to correct you: Hitler was NOT the “55th member to join,” but the 555th

Sorry, but Hitler was the 55th member. The party added 500 to each member's number to make the rolls appear larger. Ergo, Hitler's number enrollment number assigned was 555.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Hitler was a man of the left, and you’re going to have to explain precisely how he was a man of the right. If Hitler was a conservative, please explain precisely just what it was he was trying to “conserve.”

Sorry, I think you and I have beaten this issue to death. No more from this end.

[Michael Eden]

Winning by sheer attrition is still winning, isn’t it? :)

After all the years of liberal demonizing re: Hitler, Nazism, and conservatives - which was tragically validated by too many left-leaning academics - I am passionate about the issue. And I think it is a VERY important rather than trivial issue.

So you could have counted on me to keep up the argument had you wished to pursue it.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

No comment on 55 versus 555?

As I said earlier, this issue of position on the political spectrum may be of importance to you, but most of serious students (I know) of the rise and fall of the Third Reich are more focused on learning and understanding than in winning trivial arguments that arise because of a superficial knowledge of the subject.

Winning by attrition? If that makes you feel better.